CHAPTER XXXVI

“TELL ME ALL”

“‘I am not sure that I have the right to do so,’ I answered, dropping my head on my bosom.

“‘You do not know whether you have any right to do so? What do you mean, Elfrida? Are we still at cross-purposes, my dear? Or what new enigma is this?’ he demanded, uneasily.

“‘Father, I fear that a fatal mistake was made in the manner of our marriage. I fear that mistake may render it illegal. I will have no concealments from you. Therefore, I must tell you even this. Once I was led to believe that Saviola made no mistake, but purposely left the train with me, on the English side of the border, where our marriage without your consent would have been unlawful; but now since I have learned that the report of this French marriage was false, I now believe that the report of his wilful deception of me in regard to the place of our marriage was also false, and that he ignorantly made the fatal mistake.’

“‘My dear girl! My dear Elfrida! What do you mean? What fatal mistake do you mean?’

“‘I have already indicated it, my dear father. But I will tell you more distinctly,’ I said.

“And then I told him of the two stations on the road with similarly sounding names—Kelton, on the English side, within five miles of the border, and Kilton, on the Scottish side, just across the border. ‘Intending to be married at the last-mentioned place, we got out of the train by misadventure at the first, and we were married in England.’

“‘What disastrous carelessness!’ he groaned.

“‘But, father, we both acted in good faith, and were married by an ordained clergyman, and had our marriage duly recorded and witnessed. I do, for myself, feel that our marriage was lawful and sacred as if we had been united in the presence of all our relations, by the combined powers of church and state. Still it is for you to decide. I have concealed nothing from you, my dear father. I have now told you all. I leave my fate and my conduct in your hands. Shall I live on as the widowed Princess Saviola, or what shall I do?’

“‘My dear Elfrida, I must think of it. I must have time to decide. This is a complication, an embarrassment for which, dear child, I was not at all prepared. No, do not look distressed, child. I do not blame you.’

“‘Before you came I had made up my mind to leave Geneva and return to Ireland and take up my abode at Weirdwaste, where you yourself had fixed my home. Although I believed then that my husband had repudiated the ceremony performed at Kelton, deserted me and married a French heiress, still I had determined to stand by my marriage, to call myself by my husband’s name, and to live in seclusion at Weirdwaste and devote myself to the education of my son and to the care of the poor. Such was the plan of life I had laid out for myself before your arrival, my dear father. Indeed, my trunks are already packed and my hotel bill paid up to noon to-morrow. But now I place myself in your hands most gladly, and I will abide by your judgment.’

“‘You could not do better, my dear. One part of your plan may be carried out at once. We will leave this place to-morrow morning for England, but not for Ireland—not for Weirdwaste—rather for a little place of mine to which you have never been; because, in fact, it was leased for twenty-one years, and the lease will only expire on the last day of December.’

“‘You mean Myrtle Grove, on the south coast?’

“‘Yes, dear. I have given orders that as soon as it is vacated it is to be put in complete order. I intended to live there in strict seclusion. I did not know that I should have the comfort of my dear daughter’s society. For the present, that will be better than Weirdwaste for you, my child.’

“I could not but agree with my father in this view of the case.

“Then, as it was growing late, I rang for supper, which was promptly served in my sitting room.

“I asked my father if he had engaged apartments for the night.

“He told me that he had not; that he had set out from the railway station to find me first, having left all his luggage in charge of his valet at the station. But he said that he would attend to the matter immediately after supper, which he did.

“He succeeded in procuring rooms in the same house and in the same corridor with me. Then he sent a messenger from the hotel to the station to fetch his valet with the luggage.

“When these arrived he bade me good-night, and retired to his apartment.

“He had not seen my beautiful boy, nor had he asked to see him; nor had I the courage to propose to show him.

“Now I felt a little grieved at this neglect of my innocent child.

“Early the next morning we left Geneva, and traveling as fast as steam could carry us by land and sea, in due time we reached London. We put up at one of the quietest hotels at the West End. Here my father insisted that I should pay off my French maid and my Swiss nurse, and send each back to her own country.

“When they were gone, he said:

“‘And now we take leave of the Princess Saviola forever, and we know only Lady Elfrida Glennon.’

“‘But my boy, dear father—my boy!’ I pleaded.

“‘A proper nurse must be procured for the child without delay—some healthy young married woman living in the country, who will take the whole charge of the boy before we leave London. He is the child of a deceased son of mine, and so delicate that he must be reared in the country, and fed on fresh milk and fresh air.’

“‘And—must I part with my child, oh, father?’ I pleaded.

“‘For a time you must—for his sake as well as for your own. What should Lady Elfrida Glennon do with a young child at Myrtle Grove?’

“I would have pleaded with him, but I saw at a glance that it was useless to do so. Kind, tender, gentle, yielding as my father was in most cases, yet when he once made up his mind to any course his will was as strong as fate. Besides, I and my child were both in his power. I had no other alternative than to obey him. And, finally, notwithstanding the pain I felt in parting from my boy, I could not fail to see that, under the circumstances, it was best for the child, and best for us all, that he should be put out to be nursed.

“I took the sole charge of the child while we were seeking for a nurse. We had many applications, but I was hard to please. At length the right woman came; a fine, fresh, young creature, with a plump form, bright eyes, rosy cheeks, a pleasant smile, and a sweet voice. She attracted me at sight. She was the wife of a young dairyman. She had one child, a week older than my boy; and she was well able to nurse twins, if Heaven had sent twins to her. She was willing and anxious to take our little orphan. She invited us to go down into Kent and see for ourselves the comfort and cleanliness of the dairy farm, and the health and liveliness of her own child.

“We took her at her word and went home with her—only a few miles from London—and we were so well satisfied with all we found there that we concluded it would be difficult to do as well, and impossible to do better, anywhere else; and we left the baby with her, with a check for twenty-five pounds, that was to be renewed quarterly.

“I may here say that this young woman, Mary Chester, did her full duty by her nurseling, as I found in my periodical visits to the dairy.

“As soon as Myrtle Grove was ready for occupation, my father took me down there.

“It was a comparatively small place, but a lovely, secluded home, in a deep, green, wooded glen, about three miles inland from the sea.

“Here we lived a very quiet life, seeing no one but the vicar, the Rev. Mr. Ashe, of St. Agnes’ Church, the country practitioner, Dr. Ray, and the country lawyer, Mr. Flood, who was my father’s local man of business.

“We were both in deep mourning for my stepmother, and that fact justified our seclusion from the world.

“Once my brother came down from Eton to spend the Easter holidays. He had never heard of my runaway match, and my father decided that he never should hear of it.

“Once a month my father took me to the dairy farm in Kent to see his grandchild—the child of his deceased son,’ as he called my boy, and as the people at the dairy cottage believed him to be.

“‘And it is no falsehood, Elfrida, my dear. The lad is my grandchild, and is the child of my deceased son—in-law’—he said. Our deep mourning was supposed by the dairy people to be worn for this same deceased son and brother.

“Looking back, I think I had never before spent so calm, peaceful and contented a time as at Myrtle Grove.”